


Too Tired To Talk

by broadlicnic



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Film, ttss_kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-17
Updated: 2011-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:15:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadlicnic/pseuds/broadlicnic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted on ttss_kink: "Ricki is in Paris, waiting for Irina, but he knows whom he is really waiting for. The man he trusts with his life.<br/>George gives Peter a holiday after the mole thing. Peter doesn't know where to go and what to do in this holiday, because he has lost his lover.<br/>Ricki decides to take the first step.<br/>h/c is preferred."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Tired To Talk

They’re too tired to talk, because the minute Peter saw him in the doorway of his hotel room, his fist was in Ricki’s face, and it’s been that way for an hour, grappling, punching, bleeding on grubby, patterned sheets and now they’re just tired. Ricki is propped up against the wall, lip split and knuckles red, and Peter can see the skin darkening on his ribs where Ricki tore off the buttons of his shirt. And there they stay, struggling for breath and avoiding each other’s eyes, until long after the sun has set and the sharp pains have become dull aches.

Ricki moves first. He pushes away from the wall with a grunt, and runs a hand through unkempt hair, smearing blood into the blond. Without a word he limps his way into Peter’s small bathroom and closes the door. Peter just stares down at his feet, thinking of The Circus, of George, of Bill Haydon, of lost love. His breathing is laboured due to the pain in his ribs, and he lets the rhythm of it soothe him. Nothing can ever go back to the way it was before, and Peter doesn’t want it to, but he’s not quite sure what his place is now. It’s not here in a grimy hotel in Paris, and it’s certainly not here with Ricki Tarr.

Ricki is an unwelcome reminder of his past. One glance was all it took to remind Peter of all the sacrifices he’d made, for Smiley and for The Circus, and while Peter would do it again in an instant if George required it of him, he couldn’t pretend it didn’t cause him pain.

The door clicks, and Ricki emerges from the bathroom, much cleaner and his injuries a little less harsh, but still limping. He’s removed his shirt, which was almost as ruined at Peter’s own, and it is scrunched up in his fist, damp and dripping. He drops beside Peter on the bed with as much arrogance as he can muster given his condition, and Peter feels like punching him all over again. George eventually told him the story of when Ricki came to see him, tearful and full of remorse, but Peter can only see in Ricki the same cocky upstart he always knew, just with darker circles around his eyes and a lot more dangerous.

Ricki hands the damp shirt to him, and still neither of them have uttered a word. Peter wipes the damp fabric over his hands, washing away dried blood, then presses it against his ribs, the cool sensation easing his pain a little. He waits, because Ricki came here for a reason, and Peter hopes to hell it was a good one. But he won’t break the silence. He’ll wait for Ricki. Thanks to George Smiley, he’s become pretty good at waiting.

“Irina’s dead,” Ricki says, at last.

“Yes, I expect so,” Peter replies, because it’s not too difficult to deduce. Who else would have been shot dead in front of Jim Prideaux? And why should Peter sugar-coat the information for Tarr?

“I saw you a few days ago, and I knew she was – I needed someone to tell me to stop waiting.”

Peter doesn’t have an answer for that one, and the silence between them now is awkward and melancholy.

“I came back to Paris to wait for her,” Ricki continues, and he’s talking as if Peter isn’t in the room. Peter has only witnessed a conversation like this once, when Smiley lost himself in his tale of meeting Karla, and he is fascinated. All of a sudden, the appearance of Ricki doesn’t fill him with bitterness and resentment, but a feverish and depraved excitement.

“I knew she was dead, not long after we found the mole, but I still waited because there was nothing else for me to do.” Ricki’s left hand is rubbing over the knuckles of his right, still red with the first signs of bruising, and his eyes are fixated on the small window. “And then I saw you here in Paris, and I wanted to kill you, because you’re Circus and you’re a reminder of the hate I feel for the whole fucking organisation.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Peter asks. “To kill me?”

Ricki laughs then, full of spite and the sound is terrifying. “No,” he says. “What good would it do? Haydon is dead, and we were on the same side.”

“So why are you here?”

“Inquisitive mind,” Ricki says, his intonation rising as if he is questioning his own answer. “Why are you in Paris? Were you looking for me?”

“Smiley insisted I take a holiday.” The crumple of Ricki’s shirt is starting to dry out now, and Peter tosses it down behind him onto his small mattress. He thinks about pouring a drink, or lighting a cigarette, but the exertion is too much, so he just keeps staring out of the window. “I’m not quite sure what to do in Paris by myself.”

“There are a few boys in the back streets who’ll do anything you want for enough cash,” Ricki says then, and Peter would be surprised if it didn’t take too much effort. Ricki continues before he can even begin to formulate a reply. “I know, but I suppose you and Smiley are the only people I can still trust these days, so I won’t say anything.”

“I appreciate it,” Peter says, sounding more jovial than he intends to. “But that’s not my thing. Paying, I mean.”

“Me either.”

“You’ll sleep with a woman for information, but you won’t pay for a fuck.” Peter really does want to laugh now, and fuck Ricki for doing this to his ribs.

The silence falls again, but it’s more companionable this time. Ricki, who’s always been tougher than Peter, is much more able to move, and pours scotch into the two small teacups left on the hotel room dresser. They’re through a quarter of the bottle before either of them speaks again.

“Do you have any regrets?” Ricki asks.

“A few. We caught Haydon, and Smiley promoted me, and I suppose I’m…well, not happy, but content.”

“And the regrets?”

“I lost my lover,” Peter admits. It’s the first time he’s admitted to even having a lover out loud, especially to anyone from The Circus. He has the suspicion George knows, or else why would he have ordered Peter to sever ties, but admitting it himself was a big step, which he attributes to both the scotch and the fact that his loss will never be as great as Ricki’s.

“He’s still alive,” he continues, and that’s the real clincher. _He_. Peter’s just admitted something out loud that could destroy him, but Ricki looks relaxed, and it was Ricki who brought up the topic of rent boys in the first place.

“I think, maybe it would be easier if he was dead,” Ricki muses, and behind his eyes he’s in that far-off place again, the one that so intrigues Peter. “Knowing Irina’s dead, it’s comforting. And I know that sounds morbid, but it’s better than knowing she’s out there but I can’t find her.”

“Do you still love her,” Peter asks, because he can’t help himself.

“I did,” Ricki says. “A long time ago, but I haven’t for a while. I thought, if I found her, I’d love her again, and that’s why I didn’t want to give up on her for so long. Every day I waited, I loved her less.”

The first light of the morning begins to creep in through Peter’s window, and he realises just how long Ricki has been here, and how oddly comforting it is. He’s not slept since arriving in Paris, has barely slept at all since the investigation, in fact, but now his fatigue has finally got the better of him. He yawns, and Ricki follows suit because yawns are oddly infectious like that.

“I need some rest,” Peter announces. “And so do you.”

“Right,” Ricki says, and begins to push himself up off the bed. Peter’s arm darts out to halt him, causing him to wince.

“You’re in no fit state to go home,” he says. “Stay here until you’re limping less.”

Their sleeping arrangements are awkward to say the least. The mattress in Peter’s room is barely spacious enough for one full-grown man, never mind two, but they’re both too delicate to sleep on the floor, despite Ricki’s frequent offers to do so. Their heads share a pillow, but their backs face each other, pressed up against each other due to lack of space, so that the cheeks of Ricki’s arse push against his as he shifts in his sleep, and Peter is unnerved to find it comforting. Ricki snores, only lightly, but in a steady rhythm, and Peter anchors himself to that noise, letting it lull him to a dreamless sleep.

When he wakes, the sun is already beginning to set. It’s winter, and the says are short, but Peter has slept for hours uninterrupted for the first time in so long, that the joy he feels at this fact blocks out the unfamiliar weight on his waist for a good five minutes.

Eventually, he does register the arm thrown across his waist and dismisses it as Ricki rolling over in his sleep, probably dreaming of Irina. But then he notes that the hands are massaging his ribs in a way that eases the ache in them, and he feels wet lips against his skin, the scratch of a wound on the back of his neck.

He turns, with some difficulty, to face Ricki, who looks for all the world to be at complete peace. Peter is lying on his back now, arm behind his head and using the leverage it gives him to watch Ricki. Ricki just stares back at him, his own hand now having moved to Peter’s chest, and it’s almost as if he’s daring Peter to make the next move.

So Peter kisses him, because consequences be damned, he needs this right now, and he gets the feeling Ricki feels the same. They’re both broken, physically and mentally, but this is at least some temporary relief. Ricki pushes up on his elbow, better angling his head so that Peter can kiss him deeper, and Peter can taste a mixture of scotch and cigarettes and metallic blood in Ricki’s kiss. Ricki’s free hand cups Peter’s jaw, and Peter uses his own to splay his fingers against Ricki’s chest.

There’s a deep breath from Ricki as they pull apart, and then they just stare at each other, eyes locked and bodies unmoving, as they give each other silent permission to progress. For once, Peter’s the one to make the first move, capturing Ricki’s lips again, tongue running over the split in his lip, and Ricki whispers expletives as he struggles to throw an aching leg over Peter’s hips. Straddling him, Ricki pushes away from Peter’s lips and mouths his way along his chest, pausing to lick at the collection of bruises, bruises that Ricki caused and now seems to be claiming. It’s the most soothing feeling Peter has ever felt. He can feel the strain of his erection in his trousers, and can see Ricki’s own pressed against his lower abdomen. He rotates his hips slowly, trying to add some friction, and Ricki’s skin flushes red under Peter’s hand.

Peter pushes Ricki back so that he’s sitting upright, and his hands make quick work of Ricki’s fly. He doesn’t go any further than unfastening the button and zip, because for all he knows, this is Ricki’s first time with a man and he has to follow Ricki’s pace. But Ricki’s own hand flies to Peter’s crotch, unfastening the fly and pulling Peter’s cock out from his underwear.

Ricki’s hand begins pumping, slowly at first, and Peter shifts his hips upwards, taking pleasure in the groan from Ricki. Somehow, he musters the strength to sit upright, and takes out Ricki’s own cock, lightly stroking a vein with his thumb before he curls his fingers around the base, and matches Ricki’s rhythm.

Peter knows they’re not going to go any further than this, not while they’re this sore, so he tries to prolong the experience, teasing Ricki but not quite enough, and Ricki looks at him heavy-lidded, cheeks red and almost snarling with desire. Peter pulls him in for another kiss, and this one is messy and sloppy and so _dirty_ that Peter can’t help himself but tug sharply at Ricki’s hair, pulling his head back to scrape his teeth over Ricki’s Adam’s apple. Ricki cries out, the loudest Peter’s probably ever heard him, and the noise causes his balls to tighten.

“Ricki,” he gasps. “I’m gonna-“

Ricki bats his hand away, and pushes Peter back against the mattress. Peter bangs his head on the headboard, but he’s too close now to care. He sees Ricki sliding back to rest on Peter’s knees, and Ricki flashes him a wicked grin before taking the length of Peter’s cock into his mouth, and that’s all it takes. Peter is coming harder than he’s ever come in his life, and Ricki’s fingers press into Peter’s hips as he tries to swallow all of him down. When Peter’s vision is no longer swimming, Ricki appears in his line of sight, come still staining his lips, and Peter’s tongue darts out to taste it. They kiss, less violently this time, and Ricki ruts against Peter’s thigh with desperation. Peter, feeling uncharacteristically wicked, decides it might be a good idea to run a finger along the length of Ricki’s crack, and that’s all it takes. Ricki spills all over Peter’s thigh and the awful sheets, and he flops down against Peter’s chest, their adrenaline still too high for it to cause them any pain.

And then they remain in silence again. They’re too tired to talk.


End file.
